Recent Developments in Aviation Law

Recent Developments in Aviation Law addresses developments in aviation law from January 2022 through December 2022. This submission focuses on certain cases in the area of aviation law that are expected to have a significant impact upon, and ramifications for, the industry going forward such as: (1) the Federal Aviation Act and Federal Aviation Regulations; (2) the Air Carrier Access Act; (3) the General Aviation Revitalization Act; (4) the Airline Deregulation Act; (5) the Montreal and Warsaw Conventions; (6) the Federal Tort Claims Act; and (7) the Death on the High Seas Act. Finally, this submission also discusses recent developments relating to the Federal Aviation Administration’s regulations for unmanned aircraft, as well as the potential impact of recent developments in the application of the Feres Doctrine

Voyaging in the Pacific

Teaching Oceania is a publication series created with the collaboration of scholars from around the Pacific region to address the need for appropriate literature for undergraduate Pacific Islands Studies students throughout Oceania. The series is designed to take advantage of digital technology to enhance texts with embedded multimedia content, thought-provoking images, and interactive graphs.Teaching Oceania is a publication series created with the collaboration of scholars from around the Pacific region to address the need for appropriate literature for undergraduate Pacific Islands Studies students throughout Oceania. The series is designed to take advantage of digital technology to enhance texts with embedded multimedia content, thought-provoking images, and interactive graphs

Optimising Emotions, Incubating Falsehoods: How to Protect the Global Civic Body from Disinformation and Misinformation

This open access book deconstructs the core features of online misinformation and disinformation. It finds that the optimisation of emotions for commercial and political gain is a primary cause of false information online. The chapters distil societal harms, evaluate solutions, and consider what must be done to strengthen societies as new biometric forms of emotion profiling emerge. Based on a rich, empirical, and interdisciplinary literature that examines multiple countries, the book will be of interest to scholars and students of Communications, Journalism, Politics, Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, and Information Science, as well as global and local policymakers and ordinary citizens interested in how to prevent the spread of false information worldwide, both now and in the future

Optimising Emotions, Incubating Falsehoods

This open access book deconstructs the core features of online misinformation and disinformation. It finds that the optimisation of emotions for commercial and political gain is a primary cause of false information online. The chapters distil societal harms, evaluate solutions, and consider what must be done to strengthen societies as new biometric forms of emotion profiling emerge. Based on a rich, empirical, and interdisciplinary literature that examines multiple countries, the book will be of interest to scholars and students of Communications, Journalism, Politics, Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, and Information Science, as well as global and local policymakers and ordinary citizens interested in how to prevent the spread of false information worldwide, both now and in the future

An analysis of adherence & equity in access to TB services in Mitchell's Plain, South Africa

Includes bibliographical references.The control of tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa has fallen short of the targets outlined by the World Health Organization and without improvement; TB is expected to have grave consequences for both the mortality and morbidity of South Africans as well as crippling financial consequences for the public health system. While services in the public sector are free at the point of use, little is known about overall access barriers and their implications for treatment adherence. This paper explores these barriers from the perspective of TB patients enrolled in Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course (DOTS) in Mitchell's Plain, South Africa. Using a comprehensive framework of access, in-depth interviews were conducted with 334 TB patients across five facilities in Mitchell's Plain, to assess barriers across the dimensions of availability, affordability and acceptability. Summary statistics were computed and comparisons of access barriers between adherent and non-adherent groups, and between socioeconomic groups were explored using bivariate, multivariate linear and logistic regressions. Among the respondents, 244 (73.05%) met the criteria for adherence (i.e. reported that they had never missed a dose of TB medication) while 90 (26.95%) met the criteria for non-adherence. Marital status, age, birth province, costs of self-care and costs of other providers were found to be significantly associated with adherence (P-values 0.05). Nonetheless, the results revealed that the poor face increased costs of accessing TB-services, compared to the rich, though this association was not deemed to be significant

The Affordances of the Digital Medium : Users’ perceptions of digitalization

The aim of this administrative research is to identify the opportunities and obstacles associated with the exploitation of digitalization and digital services. The objective of the study is viewed from a user perspective, undertaken using a co-creation approach. The research material was collected in group discussions between participants in rural areas in Finland, as well as from the organizational environment of Finnish health care. Affordance theory, together with the concepts of the digital medium, and the co-creation of digitalization provide a theoretical framework for the research. The affordance approach provides a perspective to interpret the relationship between the user and the environment, where the aspects of the digital medium and the forming of the collective perception are also considered. By the theoretical framework, this doctoral dissertation responds to the following research question: what is the meaning of affordance theory for the utilization of the digital medium? The results of my study reflect citizens' views on digitalization and e-services. The participants’ attitude towards digitalization is described from the perspective of users, the environment, and digital applications. The model of participatory-deliberative design presented in the study enabled the multidimensional views of the topic. In conclusion, the perspective derived from affordance theory helps us to understand the factors that enable or prevent the utilization of the digital medium. However, the description also opens the cognitive process to the observer itself and to the development community. The increased self-awareness about one’s insights enables the user to be more flexible in controlling how to utilize the opportunities in the environment. Overall, increased awareness of the potential of the environment offers an opportunity to understand the views of others on the subject under consideration and to explain the underlying perception. The additional aspects of design and co-creation of the digital affordances support the successful discovery and implementation of the possibilities. The contribution of this research becomes apparent in unexpected events, as the increased digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates. The results also contribute to much more common surroundings and situations, as in the case of digitalization of welfare services.Tämän hallintotieteellisen tutkimuksen tavoitteena on digitalisaation ja digitaalisten palvelujen hyödyntämiseen liittyvien mahdollisuuksien ja estävien tekijöiden tunnistaminen. Käsiteltävän aiheen tarkastelu noudattaa käyttäjälähtöistä lähestymistapaa, joka toteutettiin yhteiskehittämisen menetelmää hyödyntämällä. Tutkimuksen aineisto kerättiin Suomen maaseutupaikkakunnilta sekä terveydenhuollon organisaatioympäristöstä osallistujien välisistä ryhmäkeskusteluista. Affordanssiteoria yhdessä digitalisaatiotematiikan sekä yhteiskehittämisen lähestymistavan kanssa muodostavat tutkimuksen teoreettisen viitekehyksen, joka tarjoaa tarkastelunäkökulman käyttäjän ja ympäristön välisen vuorovaikutussuhteen tulkitsemiseksi. Tutkimuksen teoreettisen viitekehyksen kautta väitöskirja vastaa tutkimuskysymykseen, mikä merkitys affordanssiteorialla on digitalisaation hyödyntämiselle. Tutkimuksen tulokset ilmentävät kansalaisten näkemyksiä digitalisaatiosta ja sähköisistä palveluista. Osallistujien suhtautuminen digitalisaatiota kohtaan kuvataan käyttäjien, ympäristön ja digitaalisten sovellusten näkökulmista. Tutkimuksessa esiteltävä osallistavan deliberatiivisen suunnittelun (participatory-deliberative design) malli mahdollistaa aiheeseen sisältyvien moniulotteisten näkemysten esiin nostamisen. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että affordanssiteorian näkökulma auttaa ymmärtämään niitä tekijöitä, jotka mahdollistavat tai estävät digitalisaatioon liittyvät oivallukset. Affordanssien, eli ns. tarjoumien muodostumista kuvaava kognitiivinen prosessi tarjoaa lisääntyneen oivaltamisen mahdollisuuden sekä havainnoijalle itselleen, mutta myös kehittämisyhteisön hyödynnettäväksi. Kaiken kaikkiaan lisääntynyt tietoisuus ympäristön mahdollisuuksista tarjoaa mahdollisuuden ymmärtää muiden näkökulmia tarkasteltavaan aiheeseen ja selittää ajattelun taustalla vaikuttavia syitä. Tutkimuksen vaikutukset ovat hyödynnettävissä niin odottamattomissa tapahtumissa, kuten COVID-19 pandemian myötä tapahtunut ”digiloikka” osoittaa. Tutkimuksen näkökulma on myös sovellettavissa paljon yleisempiin tilanteisiin, kuten esimerkiksi hyvinvointipalvelujen digitalisoinnin tarkasteluun.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Hunting “Big Fish”: A marine environmental history of a contested fishery in the Bohol Sea

The Bohol Sea in the Philippines has a high biodiversity of large marine vertebrates. It is also one of the primary fishing grounds in the Central Visayas. This is a study of the history of interactions of the fishers of the Bohol Sea with the ‘big fishes’ living within it. These ‘big fishes’ are the large marine vertebrates, namely whales, dolphins, whale sharks and manta rays. It is the story of the changes in the Bohol Sea and how the communities who depended on it affected these changes. Similarly, it discusses how the Bohol Sea and the large marine vertebrates shaped the lives of the coastal peoples living around it. This study aims to determine the extent of the fisheries for whales, dolphins, whale sharks and manta rays in the Bohol Sea from the 19th century to recent times. It focuses on the fishing communities of southern Bohol, Camiguin and Southern Leyte in the Central Visayas, who are known to hunt these large marine vertebrates, and aims to describe the characteristics and trace the evolution of these fisheries. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this study uses a combination of ethnographic and historical research methods, together with biological data, from published and unpublished sources. The study aims to determine if the abundance and distribution of large marine vertebrates in the Bohol Sea changed in the long-term. It also examines how the fishing communities adapted to the ecological, socio-economic and political changes over time. From its beginnings in the late nineteenth century, the hunting of whales, dolphins, whale sharks and manta rays, in the different communities around the Bohol Sea underwent very similar and, for some, identical technological developments. These fishing technologies and patterns were adapted to the nature of their target species. By the late twentieth century, with increasing population, worsening economic conditions, and declining fish stocks in the country, the Bohol Sea fishing communities’ dependence on the fisheries for large marine vertebrates also increased. Likewise, fishery policies and legislative frameworks were also evolving with a more protectionist and conservationist stance. The implementation of fishery bans in the 1990s compelled most fishers to comply and adapt, however others resisted. Communities who lived in an environment endowed with more diverse and abundant resources proved to be more resilient. While those who heavily depended on the fishery and had little else to turn to have continued to hunt up to the present day. Despite continuing protests and public clamour for a total ban on hunting for all other species of rays in the Philippines, the ray fishery in the Bohol Sea continues. This study demonstrates how state efforts to conserve whales, dolphins, whale sharks and manta rays in the Philippines have been ineffective. This is primarily because of the lack of legitimacy of these fishery policies in the eyes of the communities. This study also highlights the importance of using multiple and non-traditional data sources in evaluating fisheries that are data deficient. The study shows how it is important to examine the historical context of ecological and social systems in order to understand the causes of contemporary resource management problems

Multi-Robot Systems: Challenges, Trends and Applications

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue entitled “Multi-Robot Systems: Challenges, Trends, and Applications” that was published in Applied Sciences. This Special Issue collected seventeen high-quality papers that discuss the main challenges of multi-robot systems, present the trends to address these issues, and report various relevant applications. Some of the topics addressed by these papers are robot swarms, mission planning, robot teaming, machine learning, immersive technologies, search and rescue, and social robotics

COBE's search for structure in the Big Bang

The launch of Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the definition of Earth Observing System (EOS) are two of the major events at NASA-Goddard. The three experiments contained in COBE (Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR), Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS), and Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE)) are very important in measuring the big bang. DMR measures the isotropy of the cosmic background (direction of the radiation). FIRAS looks at the spectrum over the whole sky, searching for deviations, and DIRBE operates in the infrared part of the spectrum gathering evidence of the earliest galaxy formation. By special techniques, the radiation coming from the solar system will be distinguished from that of extragalactic origin. Unique graphics will be used to represent the temperature of the emitting material. A cosmic event will be modeled of such importance that it will affect cosmological theory for generations to come. EOS will monitor changes in the Earth's geophysics during a whole solar color cycle